


Fitted Together Like Stacked Spoons

by punk_rock_yuppie



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Grief/Grieving, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, minimal dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-25 21:32:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12541684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punk_rock_yuppie/pseuds/punk_rock_yuppie
Summary: I will not say do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.The day they clean out Georgie’s room is one with clear skies and warm winds.





	Fitted Together Like Stacked Spoons

**Author's Note:**

> aand some more angst. you know, guys, if you read my other stuff you'll see that i don't write a lot of angst usually or even h/c. i'm all about that fluff and humor. i fully, FULLY blame hannah (cathect) as she thoroughly enjoys angst and i enjoy making her happy, SO.
> 
> have some bill angst with a side of redbill. 
> 
> set when the gang is about 16. 
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> (edited to add 3/27/18: now ft a moodboard made the amazing mac! (cryingbilldenbrough on tumblr) who made the moodboard as a bday gift to me!!)

 

 

The day they clean out Georgie’s room is one with clear skies and warm winds.

 

The day they clean out Georgie’s room is also the second worst day of Bill’s life.

He helps, even though his knees shake and his heart aches. He helps pack up the toys and the clothes and the baby books. He helps roll up the bedding and box it away. He helps dismantle the bedside table and the dressers and eventually, the little bed. It’s him and his parents and they cry while they do it. They take several breaks: some to eat, some just to breathe, but most of them to sit together and cry.

Once it’s complete and Georgie’s room is stripped bare, full of only cardboard boxes, Bill leaves for the river.

 

The Losers are already waiting for him.

Richie has beer, and Bill doesn’t even want to know how he managed that. At sixteen, Richie may be all sharp angles and lanky height but there’s no way he looks old enough to buy beer. Which means he probably bribed someone (again) and Bill doesn’t ask because the less complicit in it he is, the better.

Eddie brought enough snacks from home to feed a small village. Everyone has picked out their favorites and left an enormous bag of red vines for Bill. The look on Eddie’s face tells Bill his mother doesn’t know about all the snacks being gone, and that there will be hell to pay when she finds out. Bill can also see that Eddie doesn’t care one bit.

Stan brought psalms, and he presents them a little sheepishly. Bill’s heart swells as Stan reads them quietly, more to Bill directly than anyone else. His Hebrew still isn’t perfect, but it doesn’t matter to Bill—it all sounds lovely, and sad, and it hurts but it helps, too. Bill isn’t religious but he hangs on Stan’s every word and after, when Bill cries, all the Losers gather closer.

Mike brought a quilt, one his grandmother made he tells them. It’s plush and well-worn and Bill feels a little bad laying it out over the dirty ground, but Mike insists it’s fine. It’s enormous and they can all sit together on it comfortably. Their knees knock together but Bill likes that, likes the closeness of the others around him.

Ben brought music. His beat up boombox sits away from the water on top of a tree stump, and New Kids on the Block filters quietly around them. It’s not really Bill’s taste in music, but it’s good all the same. It feels right, especially when Ben and Beverly start to sing along. Especially when Richie catches Eddie muttering the lyrics under his breath, and the accusation incites a brief wrestling match between the two.

(Richie lets Eddie pin him, and Bill revels in the matching smiles on their faces)

Beverly brought real food, which Richie pretends to scoff at. She brought his favorite sandwich and as she pulls one from the picnic basket, it wins him over instantly. He passes out his beers as she passes around sandwiches and ziplock baggies full of chips. It’s not the tastiest lunch in the world—the bread is a little stale and the beers taste like piss—but it’s the most satisfying meal Bill has had in a long time.

 

One by one, the Losers trickle away, back to their own lives. Ben is the first to go with apologies and his boombox tucked under one arm. Stan follows shortly after and though he offers his book of psalms to Bill, he declines; Bill tells Stan he’ll just have to read them aloud sometime, because he can’t think of a better way to enjoy the words. Then it’s Mike, though he leaves the quilt behind; he takes a sandwich for the road and then he’s gone. Beverly is next, and even though Richie begs her to leave it behind, she takes the picnic basket with her, and the remaining snacks inside.

That leaves Bill, Richie and Eddie.

They crowd together on the quilt, practically a tangle of limbs. Bill ends up tucked between Richie and Eddie—a change, an uncommon occurrence that leaves him feeling warm inside and out. He’s half-draped, half-cradled in their laps and they each take turns whispering reassuring things to him. Soft things, sweet things, and sad things too. They take turns sharing memories of Georgie, and Bill cries again but it’s okay.

Bill, voice wet and stammering, shares stories too.

He shares things that happened when it was just him and Georgie. He talks about the morning it happened, and how he acted more sick than he really was, and how he’s always regretted it. He admits to them both he doesn’t know if things would’ve been different had he come along, but he’ll never stop wondering. He tells them both about the churning in his gut as he watched Georgie leave that day, and how he attributed it to his upset stomach from the night before.

Some of it they’ve heard before, and some of it Bill has never said aloud. Richie and Eddie listen quietly and hold him tighter and tighter until he feels like he might burst. Eventually, Bill’s throat is raw and he can’t bring himself to think of anything else to say. He’s sick to death of crying and the pounding in his head.

 

The weather holds all day. Warm winds and clear skies. Even late into the evening, while three boys stay by the river, it’s never quite cold enough or dark enough to encourage them home.

 

“I could s-stay here for-forever.” Bill says softly. “I don’t wa-want to go back.”

Eddie’s fingers don’t pause in combing through his hair, and Richie’s soft snores don’t cease either. “You could come back to mine,” Eddie tells him. “Richie was going to come over anyway.”

Bill considers the offer—really considers it. Because just like that afternoon in front of Neibolt, it’s so much easier to be anywhere but his home. Because with Georgie’s room empty, it’s somehow so much worse than the everlasting, forever frozen memory of his presence. He’s not even sure what they’ll use the room for, if anything. He wonders if his parents left all the boxes in there and simply shut the door, like closing a chapter of their lives.

“Will y-y-you two come over?” Bill asks instead, after a long while of deliberation.

“Of course,” Eddie replies. He elbows Richie to wake him up, and Richie startles.

“Wha?”

“We’re going to Bill’s tonight,” Eddie says.

“Oh, well, yeah.” Richie says with a shrug. “Of course, Big Bill.”

Bill holds their hands until the temperature finally drops and the skies are shifting to a deep blue. He squeezes once, but can’t find the words.

“You ready, Bill?” Eddie asks. He always knows what’s to say. Richie watches them both. Bill idly thinks this might be the longest he’s ever been quiet, and he wants to laugh. He doesn’t.

Swallowing his fear, Bill nods.

“I’m r-ready.”


End file.
